President Trump has expressed interest in waiving the payroll tax through the end of the year to provide a stimulus as workers feel the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
Per Reuters, Trump told Republican senators in a meeting on Tuesday he wanted to waive the payroll tax through the end of the year, or even permanently suspend it. Democrats have publicly dismissed the idea.
The tax cut would result in a $1 trillion cash infusion into the hands of Americans during 2020, but it would come at the cost of funding Social Security and Medicare for elderly Americans.
“Nancy Pelosi all of a sudden doesn’t like the payroll tax cut,” Trump tweeted Thursday morning, “but when Obama proposed it she thought it was a brilliant thing.”
The Obama administration issued a payroll tax cut to alleviate the Great Recession in 2011 giving $109 billion back to households by cutting 2 percentage points from the sum employees paid the federal government. To counter the measure, the Treasury put a similar amount into Social Security to fund the loss.